A lung transplant procedure last fall in Michigan resulted in the death of the patient and the illness of a surgeon involved in COVID-19, after the donor and recipient initially tested negative. Doctors say this is the first documented case of a transplant recipient contracting the donor virus.
According to the doctors, the lung donor was a woman from the upper Midwest and suffered a serious brain injury in a car accident in November. According to her, she quickly progressed to ‘brain death’ the report recently published, and she was tested for COVID-19 before her organs were donated.
Her family said she showed no signs of COVID-19 symptoms in the days before the accident and that she had no history.
“We would absolutely not have used the lungs if we had a positive Covid test,” said Dr. Daniel Kaul, who accompanied the report in the American Journal of Transplantation set out the case, and the director of Mighigan Mediciden’s infectious disease transplant service told NBC News.
The recipient had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and was tested for COVID-19 before transplantation at Ann Arbor University Hospital.
“All the performances we normally do and are able to do, we did,” Kaul said.
Three days after the procedure, the recipient picked fever, her blood pressure dropped and it became difficult for her to breathe. Images of her new lungs showed signs of infection.
Test samples of her new lungs returned positive for COVID-19.
Four days after the procedure, the surgeon who treated the donor’s lungs tested positive for COVID-19.
In search of answers, doctors returned to samples taken by the donor. A test performed 48 hours after the lungs were obtained was negative for COVID-19. However, they were able to test a sample taken deep into the donor’s lungs. This sample came back positive.
Genetic tests showed that the surgeon and the recipient were infected by the donor.
The condition of the transplant worsened, and 61 days after the lung transplant procedure, she died.
The surgeon recovered.
While doctors involved in studying this incident say it is the first confirmed case of COVID-19 transmission of an organ transplant, other cases have been suspected.
The CDC recently looked at eight incidents from early in the pandemic, but they determined that the likely source of the infection was environmental exposure or health care.
The doctors who wrote the report from the University of Michigan are asking for caution and more tests during transplants.
“Transplant centers and organ procurement organizations should conduct SARS-CoV-2 testing of lower airway samples from potential lung donors, and consider the improved personal protective equipment for health workers involved in the acquisition and transplantation of the lung,” the authors said. report.
They also noted that because the donor and recipient tested negative for COVID-19, according to the accepted protocol, the health workers involved in the procedure were not required to wear N95 masks and eye protection as part of their PBT.
The study encourages transplant centers to consider the benefits of N95 masks and eye protection during transplantation, even with negative COVID-19 tests.
No other organs of the donor were used.